In my first year if university, myself and my lab partner for introductory biology were hella bored in our late night practical sessions involving little flies we had to put to sleep and instead decided to watch videos on YouTube of goats climbing trees.
Now I was absolutely and totally mesmerised by the goats who could climb trees-I mean like WHAT!
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised with this weird (but fun!) fact-goats climb mountains after all!
Unbeknown to me, these weird and wonderful goats are only found on a small stretch of road in Morocco.
I booked my trip to Morocco in July and a friend I had met the year previous had posted to facebook that he was doing the exact same tour, but in September. So as any wary traveller would do, I asked all of the questions and stalked like mad while he was in Morocco.
I then came across some of his shots of Morocco and Lo and behold there it was-a capture of goats in trees! I was literally gobsmacked!
As soon as I knew this was a possibility, I made it my absolute mission to find a tree full of goats and get a photo in front of it.
When we arrived in Morocco I challenged our desert tour guide on this, demanding when I could see my sought after goats in their tree home.
My guide, Hassan, described that goats are only found in the argan trees on the road between Marrakech and Essouria.
Argan trees are the trees which the incredibly valuable argan oil is harvested from and goats actually aid in this process.
The goats like to eat the fruit of the argan tree, which is actually on the top of the tree and this is why they climb it. When they have eaten the fruit, they spit out the seed and the seed is collected by locals to grind up and through an intricate process, create oil.
Anyway, as we drove out to Essouria from Marrakech I kept my eyes peeled. There was no way that I was going to miss seeing goats in the trees. About halfway through our journey, our guide advised that we had almost passed all of the argan trees and it was unlikely we were going to see any that day.
Not even 2 minutes later, we were driving and I spotted a group of goats (a club?) and screamed “GOATS!”. Our driver slammed on the brakes and began reversing up the highway back in the direction where the goats were.
We all immediately got out of the car and ran towards the goats. Our guide assisted and spoke to the shepherd, but the goats would not climb the trees, much to my dismay.
But I did get to watch them reach up and try to eat the leaves, so not a total loss! Dejected, I got back in the car and continued driving towards Essouria.
On the way, our guide told us about the harvesting seasons and how currently, it was olive harvesting season. Our guide then went on to tell us how when the olive trees are being harvested, that means the argan trees have already been harvested.
That means… No goats in trees.
Devastating.
But our guide then told us one other specific and interesting fact-shepherds will lure their goats into the trees with planted fruit so there is a chance that we would be able to see then on our way out of town.
Secretly celebrating to myself, I waited patiently until the next driving day came around.
So there we were anxiously sitting on the edge of our seats, driving along the argan tree clad road a few days later, persistently looking for goats nestled in branches.
Then we saw it.
A bunch of goats in a tree. With a baby goat on the ground!
We screamed again and our bus stopped. We ran across the road and I had my baby lamb in my arms with an army of tree goats behind me.
DREAMS.
[ALMOST] BEST. DAY. EVER.
